Album Notes

Review in New York Times 11/12/07 by Ben Ratliff

CARLA KIHLSTEDT and SATOKO FUJII
“Minamo”
(Henceforth)
On “Minamo” the violinist Carla Kihlstedt and the pianist Satoko Fujii ply the craft of post-jazz musicians all over the world: live, free-improvisation duets. Most records like this imply that the two musicians rarely get a chance to play together. (If they did, they might invest in the partnership more: write some music, book a studio, set up a Web site for the project, give it a name.) And some are perfunctory, of course. But not this one. “Minamo” is extraordinary, a series of tight, dramatic events.
Both Ms. Kihlstedt, who lives in California, and Ms. Fujii, who lives in Japan, have conservatory backgrounds. Both eventually threw themselves into non-genre-specific writing and improvising, drawing on rock, Cecil Taylor, Bartok and much else; you’re more likely to find them in a jazz festival than any other kind. (Ms. Kihlstedt is a member of the bands Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and 2 Foot Yard; Ms. Fujii leads her own trio, quartet and orchestra.) They performed together onstage in 2002 and 2005, in San Francisco and in Wels, Austria, and this disc captures both concerts.
Even without written music the musicians have plenty of ground under their feet: vamps, patterns, echoed motions. Both play with virtuosic precision and a great range of technique, even when the music becomes gestural and built on hummingbird pulses, glassy wipes of the violin strings, dark rumbles of rubbed piano strings. The whole record, but especially the second concert, runs on its own vivid tension. BEN RATLIFF

Carla Kihlstedt and Satoko Fujii are brilliant musicians. This CD was recorded during two Festivals. The first in San Francisco in 2002 and the second was at the “Music Unlimited Meeting” in Wels, Austria in 2005. The latter was where I heard them and was dazzled; I am not easily dazzled.

As Larry Ochs (ROVA Sax Qt.) says in the liner notes: “. . . They show us exactly how improvisation can become the strongest tool in a composer’s toolbox . . .” Both Carla and Satoko tour with other bands. Carla is part of Tin Hat Trio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Charming Hostess. Satoko performs extensively in Japan and worldwide with Mark Dresser, Jim Black, and Natsuki Tamura among others. Satoko says, Playing with Carla is such a special experience for her as it gets to a place where she never could imagine or hear beforehand. Carla expounds saying: “Playing with Satoko is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. The very first time we played together (which is documented on this CD) we found an inexplicably mutual language that has, since then, been an amazingly fertile playground for us. We always seem to arrive together at places that neither of us could possibly find on our own. It’s one of those rare and exciting moments in which I don’t feel like we’re improvising so much as we’re uncovering whole fields of lost artifacts.”

Henceforth’s quest is to bring to the attention of a contemporary listening audience the work of some of today's most vital artists whose vision crosses the boundaries and expands definitions of contemporary classical, improvised, electronic, and experimental music. Furthering Henceforth’s mission, Kihlstedt and Fujii’s Minamo is an example of powerful genre-bending music.

Reviews:

"Even without written music the musicians have plenty of ground under their feet: vamps, patterns, echoed motions. Both play with virtuosic precision and a great range of technique, even when the music becomes gestural and built on hummingbird pulses, glassy wipes of the violin strings, dark rumbles of rubbed piano strings. The whole record, but especially the second concert, runs on its own vivid tension."
-Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

"The playing is absolutely beautiful, and oddly enough it's beautiful in that classical way in which you might separate an individual's performance from the music that he or she is playing. There are moments here, as in the spontaneous melody of "One Hundred and Sixty Billion Spray," that are executed so well it wouldn't matter what the notes are (if such a distinction could be made, and it often is). But the two are actually making this up from the material of their interaction. Fujii is especially adept at elaborating form, sometimes creating a complex dialogue between left and right hands that follows, frames and amplifies Kihlstedt's lines. That expressive richness here (the Bartok/ Prokofiev lineage) springs from Kihlstedt's profound sound and attack, as rich and dynamic as any violinist who has entered the improvising community."
-Stuart Broomer, Point of Departure

Brief Biographies

Carla Kihlstedt
Carla has played the violin for most of her years on this planet. It has been the vehicle that has brought her through many approaches to music-making, from her beginnings in the classical world to her present many-headed musical life. Kihlstedt has studied at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
She is a composer, an improviser, a vocalist, and a member of several long-term projects, including 2 Foot Yard, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and Tin Hat. Aside from her various identities within these bands, Carla has had the opportunity to work with many wonderful musicians including Fred Frith, Lisa Bielawa, Ben Goldberg, Carla Bozulich, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Tom Waits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Kihlstedt

Satoko Fujii
Many say that Satoko Fujii is one of the most original voices in jazz today. She’s “a virtuoso piano improviser, an original composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver," says John Fordham in The Guardian. In concert and on nearly 40 albums as a leader or co-leader, the Tokyo resident synthesizes jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Since she earned her graduate diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern improvised music. Her trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black has released five CDs, all of which earned places in critics’ year-end Top 10 lists. In 2001, she debuted an electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring Takeharu Hayakawa, Tatsuya Yoshida, and Natsuki Tamura, and their high-energy CDs were hailed by listeners worldwide. Fujii has also established herself as one of the world’s leading composers for large jazz ensembles. Since 1997, she has released a steady stream of acclaimed releases for large ensemble, culminating in 2006 when she simultaneously released four big band albums: one from her New York ensemble, and one each by three different Japanese bands. In addition to playing accordion in her husband trumpeter Natsuki Tamura’s Gato Libre quartet, she also performs in a duo with Tamura, as an unaccompanied soloist, and in ad hoc groupings with musicians working in different genres. She tours regularly appearing at festivals and clubs in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Europe.
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~Libra/